Facebook and WhatsApp are the two leading social media platforms with 280 million and 400 million user bases respectively in India. Thus, many business owners who face a decline in their revenue due to the extension of the lockdown period are using these platforms to connect with customers, say for example EdTech platforms are using Facebook live for online training, a grocery store is taking orders through WhatsApp etc. Samsung asked its offline retailers to start a Facebook business page to sell their products. And their rival Vivo use their Facebook page to record the interest of their customers in phones to reach out to them to satisfy their needs with assistance.
Facebook has launched a new feature Facebook Shops recently to help small business owners to sell their products easily through this platform during this lockdown period. Business owners are excited about Facebook Shops as it helps them get engaged with customers even in this Covid-19 situation and also enhances their brand awareness.
Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah, Vertical Technology Head, Telecom, Automotive, and New Business Facebook India responded to these changes that they introduced this initiative by the insight that most people are engaged digitally staying indoors. Thus, most of them who are active in social media will notice Facebook Shops. EdTech uses Facebook to target its audience for customer acquisition and new app installs. For example, Paper boat apps use Facebook to reach parents for its preschool app Kiddopia. Anshu Dhanuka Co-founder of Paper boat apps said that there is a 100% increase in downloads and subscriptions of their pre-school learning app compared to pre-lockdown period. Other online learning platforms like Coursera is also using Facebook to upload their new courses and new methods of teaching along with asking users reviews, questions, etc.
Similarly, Simplilearn uses Facebook live to teach their uses of some tips of leaning from home along with work at home. up Grad host webinars and post videos held by renowned professors and with the use of Facebook they saw an increase of 100% in their CTRs.
Not only Facebook, but WhatsApp is also used by local business people to deliver groceries and other items to the neighborhood. Karnataka government had taken the initiative to begin a project in WhatsApp to make it easier for customers to buy vegetables, medicine, and grocery through WhatsApp.
